


The Songbird's Lover

by musicaldork



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hadestown Fusion, Anachronistic, Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Hadestown AU, Inspired by Hadestown, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Tenderness, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24041908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicaldork/pseuds/musicaldork
Summary: Beauregard was a hungry young girl -  a runaway from everywhere she'd ever been.Jester was the daughter of a muse - a naive girl who wore her heart out on her sleeve.But strangely enough, she had a gift to give - she could make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is.For once, we allow ourselves to sing a song of love and loss - the way it's always been sung, time and time again.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Jester Lavorre, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett, The Gentleman | Babenon Dosal/Marion Lavorre | Ruby of the Sea
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. Road to Hell

Like the rise and swell of the tide, everybody knows the way the sad song goes.  
Tragedy lends itself nicely to its own doomed, cyclical fate.

Every time the song comes around, we can’t help but hold our breath at the chorus and hope that it’ll turn out better this time.

It never does.

Even so, we wipe away the tears we shed in the dark and step into the morning light.  
We try again.

And it is with this, do we open this tale.   
We open ourselves to the world to this sullied, hopeless song of resignation.

\---

Everybody’s hungry.

Those lucky enough to get their hands on stronger spirits make sure to down them hastily, as if fearing they'll get snatched away in the blink of an eye.   
Those who circle like vultures - with loose, wandering eyes and even looser, nimbler fingers - do little to assuage these fears.

They spill the drink all over themselves, but are sure to get enough liquor in them to begin drunkenly warbling out their own take on the world as it stands.   
Too poor, too lonely, too sad - everybody’s too much something, and not enough everything else.

It’s mighty hard times for everyone these days.

Their distant hums of misery fade into the background as the sound of a rapidly-approaching steam engine drowns it out wholesale.

Like clockwork, every spring follows the slow chugging of a steam-powered train, the way it has for many millennia past.  
A grey firbolg with a shock of pale pink hair steps out onto the platform, waiting.  
  
Timeless in a way that makes his real age near imperceptible to the mortal eye, stands Caduceus, the divine messenger who bridges the gap between two functional hells.  
  
No name rings truer than his for a psychopomp of his esteem.  
There was no second guessing that it was a world of gods and men.

The train’s final whistle screams its way through the air, but he doesn’t flinch at the sound.  
Instead, he placidly awaits the arrival of one Lady of the Underground, back to bring forth a fruitful spring and summer for as long as she’s allowed to.

Trailing repulsive splutters of black, tarry fumes behind itself in sullen protest, the train finally chugs its way to a reluctant stop.

The door slowly cracks open to reveal a breathtaking, red-skinned tiefling lady, suitcase full of blessed summertime in hand.  
This is the Lady of the Underground.  
Marion Lavorre by name, goddess of spring by claim - and the unhappy wife of one stone-hearted miser king as her unwilling tagline.

“ _It's spring,_ ” she utters, as she takes Caduceus' proferred arm.

Two words out of her mouth and the world shifts a little on its axis.  
The air grows a little sweeter around them.  
Not a single leaf dares to drop from its branch after her arrival.

His only answer to that is a wordless nod and a smile in his eyes, as they stroll, arm-in-arm, down the empty train station.


	2. Any Way the Wind Blows

Beau knows a thing or two about hunger.

It's something she knows all too well.

She knows the way it mockingly gnaws at your bones and she knows just how easily it can drive you to madness.  
She knows all too much about stale loaves, smuggled in back pockets when nobody's looking.

By now, she's made a bitterly loyal companion of the sure, dull ache that follows.  
Something ravenous _\- starving_ _-_ clawing at churning, empty belly.

The food she scrounges up may be enough to _survive_ on, but it’ll never be enough to truly _live_ on, and she knows it.

It’s almost worse to dance on the tightrope of starvation without being able to arrive at the blessed oblivion that lies just ahead.  
If she knew any better, she'd throw in the towel like so many had.

But she knows she won't.

Survival thrums through her veins in place of hot, red blood, the way it always has.  
She isn’t fuelled by anything else but these days.

Beau stretches the sleep out of weary limbs and heads into the local tavern, bo staff in hand. Her strongest weapon may be her fists, but it wouldn't do to go outside without a weapon in times like these.

Somebody’s always looking for a fight.  
The air reeks with the inescapable stench of desperation. It makes everybody scrappy. Scrappy with the kind of irritability that only comes from a deep-rooted misery like this. Nothing cultivates fear, anger and isolation like it.

The sky is overcast, but its searing hot, and humid. Like taking in thick, acrid smoke in place of oxygen, it's hard to draw breath.  
  
It's like there isn't a spring or fall at all anymore.  
  
When was the last time she took a breath of fresh, clean air into her lungs? Lazed away a pleasant day under the kindness of a warm sun?  
Only the gods could hazard a guess at this point.  
  
The weather switches from blazing hot to freezing cold in a minute or two, as temperamental as most of its suffering inhabitants.

Whichever way the wind blows, Beau knows full well that disaster follows close behind its embittered howl.  
Everything is temporary. No point sticking around. She can run. Just pack a bag and take off; never stay in one place too long.  
It isn't much of a life, but it's what she knows all the same.

But you see, wherever Beau tried to run, the fates always followed close behind. In her head they lived - three old women all dressed the same - supplying an ironic providence you can never escape from.  
There was always singing in the back of everybody's mind, but never was a voice so clear and decisive than in the head of this hungry young girl.  
  
They'd whisper treacherous thoughts of unreachable niceties to her. Thoughts of what it'd be like to lie her aching body down in a bed, unharried by the blistering winds.  
The thought of trading her hunger in for warm, delicious foods and a satisfied stomach in its place.  
  
_And what, pray tell, would she be willing to do for this?_ they'd taunt, relishing in the bait they laid before the face of their starving mutt.  
The question going unanswered stood as answer enough. There were no lengths to which a girl wouldn't go for the barest of comforts these days.

Settling down at a scuffed, wooden table, Beau picks up an unlit candle, and thoughtlessly turns it about in her hands.

“Anybody got a match?”

The plea is listless - _hopeless_ \- but regardless, she lets the words suspend themselves in the suffocating air of the tavern.  
  
She expects the way she always does, to go unanswered.  
  
Surprisingly, somebody tosses a near-empty matchbox her way.  
  
It lands on the floor but she pays that no mind. Nobody's too proud to scrabble around in the grunge nowadays. She sure isn't.  
You wouldn't survive without getting your hands dirty, in more ways than one.

She smiles bitterly down at the lit match in her hand, lighting the wick easily. Wouldn't be long til it burnt down to the quick. Inevitable, really. If it reminds her of herself, she doesn't let herself dwell on it.  
Even so, the humming of her thoughts plague her like a tune she can't quite shake out of her ear.

_People turn on you just like the wind. Everybody is a fair-weather friend. In the end, you're better off alone. Any way the wind blows._

Beau picks at the edge of her nail and stares into the flickering flame of the candle, so lost in thought that she doesn't notice the blue tiefling across the room, staring at her like she's something _awe-inspiring._

If, perchance, Beau _had_ looked up in that very moment, she would've found herself viciously stricken by a very dangerous, implacable desire of the heart - perhaps even overtaken by the feeling of finding a person you'd always known in the face of a stranger.


End file.
